


Portraits

by greensweater



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Artist Luna Lovegood, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/F, Gen, Lesbian Luna Lovegood, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, POV Luna Lovegood, autistic luna lovegood (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 08:35:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greensweater/pseuds/greensweater
Summary: Luna sleeps lightly, waking at the crack of dawn each morning to say hello to the house elves, still finishing their work. She sends an owl to her father every day after lunch, like clockwork. The letters are long and detailed, the stories often trailing off into thoughtful speculation rather than a specific point. She likes writing, likes recording her observations about the fantastic creatures around her—she’s a Ravenclaw, after all, even if some people scoff at the things she believes in.





	Portraits

Pandora dies before she sends Luna off to school, and Xenophilius takes Luna to the Hogwarts express alone. His little girl looks around at the chattering crowd, the hooting owls and curling steam from the train, and he almost pulls her away from the world that he knows will treat her so cruelly. Instead, he wipes the tears from his eyes, kisses her on the forehead, and promises to write every single day.

 

School treats Luna as expected. Classmates and teachers alike don’t know what to make of her, though the professors hide their bemusement better than the children. Luna buries herself in the castle instead, wandering through the corridors and spending countless hours in the library.

 

She spends first year in relative solitude and pretends not to care. Xenophilius thinks more seriously about homeschooling his daughter. But she finds herself sitting by a small, redheaded girl on the way to her second year at Hogwarts. 

 

“I’m Luna Lovegood,” she says, and then casually, “I don’t have friends, but I dearly love learning about the Fanged Codswallop and the members of the Snorkack family.”

 

The girl looks at her in a sort of scared bewilderment. Luna notices her red hair and freckles and realizes that this must be the girl kidnapped last year, by the Slytherin snake monster in the pipes. She likes her instantly.

 

“Ginny Weasley,” the girl says. “What’s a Snorkack?”

 

Hogwarts is infinitely better with a friend to face it with. It takes Ginny a few days to come out of her shell, and when she does, she is vibrant and silly and brave, and Luna loves her with all her heart. Ginny faces up to bullies and calls her “Loony” affectionately, easing the nickname’s sting.

 

But Ginny can’t solve all of her problems. Social interaction and fun come easily to Ginny, and Luna is unintentionally left behind. Ginny sighs over Harry Potter’s green eyes and messy hair, and Luna doesn’t tell her about the way her mouth goes dry when she looks at Cho Chang’s pretty smile and graceful walk. She still info-dumps about Xenophilius’s strange creatures and her knowledge of the world, and wears her mother’s radish earrings proudly. Life at Hogwarts is not easy for Luna Lovegood. But wonderful moments have a way of piercing through the hard times.

 

Luna pretends not to notice her shoes disappearing.

 

“Bare feet keep the nargles away,” she tells the Gray Lady, who smiles sadly and motions her along to Charms.

 

Instead of paying attention in class, she turns her toenails different colors and thinks of Ginny’s gritted teeth and flashing eyes when she notices her without shoes.

 

Her mother would have laughed, she tells herself, if someone had taken her things.

 

Luna sleeps lightly, waking at the crack of dawn each morning to say hello to the house elves, still finishing their work. She sends an owl to her father every day after lunch, like clockwork. The letters are long and detailed, the stories often trailing off into thoughtful speculation rather than a specific point. She likes writing, likes recording her observations about the fantastic creatures around her—she’s a Ravenclaw, after all, even if some people scoff at the things she believes in. 

 

Neville Longbottom comes into the picture at the end of third year. She hides among the plants in the greenhouse after some particularly brutal tormenting by some Ravenclaw sixth years (psychological torture is often more effective than physical). He finds her curled up by a Devil’s Snare, panics quietly, and quickly leads her to a safer grove of plants. They don’t talk much, but he shows her how to trim a Mirkwood bush and makes her a hot drink. Neville is quiet and patient and kind, and she thinks he would be a good teacher someday.

 

At the beginning of fourth year, Harry Potter sits in their train compartment. She pretends to be oblivious to the way he ducks his head when Cho Chang says hello, the way he flushes when she stares at him behind her colorful glasses. “Cool” has never been on her mind, and she doesn’t care too much about appearances. But Harry has been under an incredible amount of scrutiny his entire life, and she understands, even if she doesn’t like it.

 

Ron and Hermione are a puzzle she can’t seem to solve. Ron is clever, funny, charming—a striking contrast to Hermione’s form of cold, methodical logic. But they complement each other, even though their constant sniping gets tiring after a while. Hermione is not quite sure how to talk to Luna without seeming rude or stony, but Ron thinks she’s odd and hilarious and strangely wonderful.

 

She thinks she might be a little in love with all of them. Even Hermione.

 

The Ministry fiasco changes everything. Xenophilius seems almost wary of her that summer, stepping around her carefully—or as carefully as he’s able to. She wakes up paralyzed from fragmented and confusing nightmares more than a few times a week. But that summer, she gets more letters than she’s ever gotten in her life. Ginny and Neville write, of course, but so do Harry (genuine questions, looping letters) and Ron (short messages, careless scrawling) and Hermione (long words, cramped script). It’s the little things that count in a friendship, and the letters make her happy.

 

During her fifth year, she and Hermione Granger have Arithmancy together. In some wave of fate, they are paired for a project. Hermione gives her a tentative smile—she has never been especially kind to Luna, and Luna has not forgotten. But Luna smiles back, and talks about her father’s fruitless search for the Blibbering Humdinger to her heart’s content (and Hermione’s badly-suppressed scoffs).

 

Luna paints everyone she loves on her bedroom ceiling. It takes an advanced levitation spell and an everlasting sticking charm, but her father has never agreed with the Ministry’s ban on underage magic and doesn’t take too much stock in punishing children for experimenting. She spends a whole day discovering the exact green of Harry’s eyes. She lovingly daubs each frizzy curl on Hermione’s head. She smiles as Neville’s round cheeks and kind expression appear under her brush. Ron comes into being in less than three hours; he is brilliant and funny and warm on her ceiling. She paints Ginny laughing, her eyes bright and teeth sharp, freckled and beautiful and vivid. When she is finished, she charms the gold border to spell “friends” around each of them; because that’s what they are. Her friends.

 

The war comes quickly for Luna. She is the creative mind behind Dumbledore’s Army—while Neville organizes frightened children and Ginny spits fire in the halls of Hogwarts, she plants traps that would make the Weasley twins proud. She draws witty anti-Voldemort cartoons and scrawls _Dumbledore’s Army_ and _Potter Lives_ with magically permanent markers that furious Death Eaters spend hours erasing. Professor Flitwick gives her a fierce, respectful nod each day after her Charms class, and one day she finds a note hidden in her textbook that reads “you are a credit to the house of Ravenclaw.” 

 

But while she is cautious to avoid attention at Hogwarts, Xenophilius is not so careful. Luna is snatched off the train midway through the year, and all she can think about are her friends, screaming and clawing at their restraints as she’s dragged away.

 

“Can you bring me some paper?” Luna asks Draco Malfoy when she’s trapped in the manor. His face, so pale and drawn, tightens at her words. She keeps her eyes trained on his—he owes her something, even if it’s something as small as a simple occupation. “Please, I’m so bored down here with nothing to do.” He says nothing, but the next time he comes down to deliver her daily rations, he slips a pad of paper into her hand. Folding paper cranes doesn’t seem like an invigorating activity, but the work gives her an outlet for her overflowing creative energy. And the next time Draco comes to the cellar, she gives him a crane and he almost smiles. Almost.

 

Shell Cottage is a rebirth of sorts. She and Dean go down to the shore and just sit, relishing the cool sea breeze on their faces and the feeling of freedom. A new friendship, forged in the dim and despair of Malfoy Manor. 

 

“I miss Seamus,” Dean confides.

 

“I miss Ginny,” she says back, and puts an arm around his shoulders.

 

When the battle comes, she and Dean are ready. Before they go to fight, however, they visit Dobby’s grave and lay a wreath of fresh flowers on the stone. Sacrifice, horrible heartbreaking sacrifice, makes up any war. Fleur takes her to Hogwarts with Side-Along Apparation, Bill doing the same with Dean, and they land in Hogsmeade, wands out.

 

Luna only remembers snippets of the fight itself: flashing lights, screams, the scent of death and blood. Hogwarts is not the familiar haven of knowledge and friendship that they all know, but a battlefield. She curses Death Eaters so thoroughly they fall to the ground and don’t get up, and all she feels is savage vindication. 

 

After Harry kills Voldemort, she sits with Neville at the Hufflepuff table—it is neither her house nor Neville’s, but it feels safe. Neville puts his head down and just cries. She watches Ginny hug her mother, battle-worn and heartbroken. There would be time left to talk. There would be days, and months, and years in which to talk.

 

For now, she pats Neville on the shoulder and closes her eyes, finally taking a deep breath.

 

Luna Lovegood goes back to her childhood home after the war. Her father putters around the kitchen, still jumping at loud noises and worrying incessantly when he can’t find her. Some days, she walks over to the Burrow, letting Molly Weasley fuss over her and giving Ron the newest edition of the _Quibbler_. Ginny is usually flying in the orchard, on the new broom she was gifted by the Holyhead Harpies for her wartime efforts. Luna likes to sit in the grass and watch her, swooping and laughing and vivid, beautiful and brave. When Ginny lands, she sits next to Luna and they watch the clouds travel lazily across the sky. One day, Ginny kisses her under the blue sky, and Luna kisses her back, feeling complete for the first time since the war began.

 

She works with magical creatures and travels all over the world, and still looks for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack whenever she journeys to South America. Her father publishes her drawings in every month’s _Quibbler_. Nothing has made her lose sight of what is truly important—her individuality. Her friendships. Her love for the extraordinary.

 

Luna lies on her bed, looking up at the friends on her ceiling. She smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope by the end of this you love Luna Lovegood as much as I do. Leave kudos/a comment if you liked it!


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